Hi all- someone here will know the answer to this one.

Someone close to me was killed in an RTA some time ago.

I’ve just learned that the vehicle in question, which sustained heavy but repairable damage, was sold on, and repaired, and returned to the road.

Is this standard practice in the event of a fatality?

cheers

Not sure it’s standard practice but if the damage was repairable the new owner may or may not even know that it involved a fatality.

Good point NZCol.

I’ve always assumed it to be common with motorbikes, just from the state of damaged repairable bikes.

No reason not to, won’t make any difference if it was scrapped.

Presumably, people die in the back of ambulances all the time?

Rachel

It’ll be classified as:
Cat D: repairable, but uneconomic for the insurers
Cat C: repairable, but requires inspection by VOSA to approve the repairs, usually meant something structural was damaged/bent
Cat B: To be scrapped, parts can be sold as spares
Cat A: To be scrapped and all parts destroyed

So it’s D or C.

Sentimentality doesn’t come into it.

Not every vehcile involved in a fatal accident is scrapped is it ? You scrap a car if its not worth repairing financially

Train carriages involved in fatal train carriages get repaired and returned to service. Houses aren’t demolished if someone dies (unless its the scene of multiple newsworthy murders). Why should vehicles be destroyed if they’re involved in a fatality?

I thought there was some issue with contamination (sure there was a previous thread) so that even if a vehicle was economic and structurally repairable, sometimes it needed to be so deep cleaned that it was then not economic..

It does happen, depending upon the nature of the fatality. My dad drives a Yaris that is Cat D after the previous owner had a heart attack at the wheel and it stopped embedded in a bank. Only suffered light damage – bumper, wing, bonnet, a few bits of suspension – and is fine to drive but was 10 years old at the time so was a write-off. He’s not bothered about driving it.

I know vehicle breakers tend to just scrap any vehicle where the occupant(s) died, presumably as a mark of respect.

I personally wouldn’t want to own a car that someone has died in though.

Why not? We use houses, hospitals, schools, libraries, etc where people have died in them all the time. We don’t knock them down just out of “respect”.

Rachel

Its usually due to “biological contamination”
Issue is the Cat a/b/c/d is only “guidelines” from the insurance companies themselves and not legal.

I thought there was some issue with contamination (sure there was a previous thread) so that even if a vehicle was economic and structurally repairable, sometimes it needed to be so deep cleaned that it was then not economic..

So it’s a question of how many parts is the dead person in when they died?

I guess the cost of cleaning up just gets added to the cost of everything else when writing the car off.

I guess for an accident be fatal the car would have to be pretty mangled anyway, unless it was some freak ‘Final destination’ type accident with some re-bar through the windscreen or something.

It’d be a bit odd to write cars off just because someone died in them though.

I had a dead man’s bed for years as a kid and once had a sofa which had been given to us as in it’s previous residence someone had used it to stand on and hang themselves.

I’ve crossed many a bridge that’s been used as a platform for a suicide jumper. Probably been in a few buildings too.

libraries

Any stats on library deaths?

Alan Kimber collects all the axes people drop on the Ben each year in the spring and then sells them the next winter, must be a few dead men’s axes amongst that lot…

Any stats on library deaths?

Nope. They like to keep it quiet.

perchypanther – Member
Any stats on library deaths?
Nope. They like to keep it quiet.

That’s a pity. I think they should ssssshhhhare

Has no one here seen Christine?

Issue is the Cat a/b/c/d is only “guidelines” from the insurance companies themselves and not legal.

Pretty sure that’s wrong.

See here

and

here too

Used cars are full of people’s dna and excreta anyway….skin cells, toe nails, hairs, a fair few will have traces of vomit and excreta in them, especially if kids ( or the making of kids) are involved.

Not sure you make kids the same way as the rest of us.

In some parts of the world such as Japan, a house that someone has died in doesn’t sell well (typical lifespan of a house, 15 years or something ridiculous like that). I heard a story about one such gentleman considering a purchase of a oldish building in the UK, being met by baffled amusement when he asked for assurances that no-one had died there in the last few centuries….

We had a sad case of a colleague who killed himself in his works vehicle. He sat there for a day or two before being discovered, we were told the van, which only had a broken window to get to him, would be destroyed rather than put back into service/sold on.

Sincere apologies if my Aspie brain is missing something but,

And?

Whatever tragedy occurred (and I’m sorry for your loss) but, the cause was human rather than vehicular?

The Essex boys infamous Range Rover (F424 NPE from memory) is still being driven despite the three occupants inside being blasted to smithereens with a shotgun

Has no one here seen Christine?

Isn’t that the remake of ‘Herbie Goes Bananas (and kills everyone)’

Any stats on library deaths?

When I worked in a council Art Gallery / Museum / Library the reference library was referred to as ‘The departure lounge’.

Whatever tragedy occurred (and I’m sorry for your loss) but, the cause was human rather than vehicular?

Yep, the vehicle just happened to be where he decided to end it. However, I imagine the seat was rather contaminated, the vehicle possibly heading towards seven years old.

I don’t know if it was actually written off, or if they just said that to those that asked, and quietly changed the seat and sent it off to auction.

Hope you are OK OP 🙁

My brother had a car where the previous owner was decapitated when he drove into the back of a scaffold lorry.
You wouldn’t have known.

Was it an open top roof?

Probably was afterwards

Yeah, that’s the joke.

My previous house had a dying cancer patient who stayed home and died.

The house was not knocked down.

Was a bit weird/strange but it’s all in the mind.

If it’s someone close to you then it’s s different kettle of fish altogether.

Hope you’re ok OP.

I joined a company many years ago and after some delays (hire cars) I got a company car. It had a really strong chemical smell and the garage told me to drive it carefully since it had a new engine. I asked a few questions at the company and got some obviously evasive answers.

It turned out that the car had belonged to one of my colleagues whose partner had a massive heart attack when driving it. He revved it out and crashed it (hence the new engine, new bodywork and chemical clean up).

The company should have sold it or written it off. Nobody told me this until I picked up the colleague (whose partner had died) in the car which he died in. Terrible situation.